Yesterday, I posted this picture of the artist Rita Lino on our Facebook page, to express in a funny way our desire to travel. It was quickly liked by about twenty people and even shared by a few people like our friends from the Travelettes travel magazine. Today, I received a warning letter from Mark saying that they deleted the photo as it didn’t comply with the terms of use of the site.

If there’s one thing that we can’t stand it’s censorship. So obviously we have decided to repost the image here so everyone can see it and understand why it’s not on our fan page anymore. Some might have thought that we took it off…

The underlying puritanism of Facebook doesn’t need to be demonstrated anymore and this is just one more among multiple incidents of censorship for the #1 social network. And while this photo is obviously explicit, it technically doesn’t show any nude private parts. But that’s not even the problem. Seriously, think about it. It’s just a beautiful arty picture which is fun and represents perfectly our lust for travel.

Our other concern is that someone actually reported the photo to the greater authority of Facebook since they censored it so quickly. We wish she/he had contacted us instead to talk about it or commented on the image to start a debate. It’s quite sad to believe that someone who’s actually a fan of our project decided to flag this photo. We have no idea who it is of course but that person should probably unlike us on Facebook since he/she obviously doesn’t get the open minded and free spirit of Hejorama.

Ugh, facebook’s censorship sucks. They’ll take down “explicit” photos like this (which isn’t even that explicit!), but have no problem with keeping pro-rape fb groups around. Consistency, Facebook, consistency….

I am a hejorama fan on facebook, I saw the picture, it wasn’t my favorite. I didn’t find it beautiful or artsy. meh perhaps I am a prude. I didnt flag the photo, though :)I said “eww” in the comments section. After reading this post, I find it a bit silly to suggest that someone should unfan you because they thought your photo violated the explicit terms of facebook. (especially because, as it was noted below, it might not have been a hejorama fan who reported it, it was shared right?) I get it, Hejorama is open minded and free spirited, but from this article your open mindedness only applies to people whose opinions are the same as yours. I am not a fan of censorship and I don’t even like facebook that much but you have to play by their rules if you use their platform, just sayin.

Nicole: I don’t think that’s very fair to say that our open mind only applies to people who share our opinions. We said that we would have preferred that person to write us so we can talk about it instead of telling on us to FB. We are always ready to reevaluate our position if a talk convinces us to do so. But first their needs to be a discussion.

The second problem is that it’s fairly difficult to know what is considered a violation or not on FB. And we did comply since we didn’t tried to reupload the image there or argue with them about the issue. As you said, it’s their platforms so it’s their rules. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try to make things change and fight those rules if we don’t believe in their fairness. This doesn’t only apply to FB which is also the point of this story. “Fight for your rights”.

Hi Nicole. I don’t know what to add, but indeed we are open to the discussion, and understand that people can have different opinions than us! Even if I would have prefered that the people who have been shocked by the picture understood that it was for me an artistic, poetic, symbolic and funny way to illustrate the “desire to travel” :)
We are here to share our opinions and discuss about it, and we only don’t appreciate that people anonymously attack us, without take time to talk.
I appreciate that you posted this comment and that we can answer you ! See you soon.

hey alex and maeva, i appreciate the replies! sorry you thought my comment was unfair, my only point was that a part of being open minded is understanding that all people are not as open minded as you are :) on facebook and with the sharing mechanism the photo was accessible to your fans and most likely the prudish grandmothers of some of your fans. i doubt this person would even stop and say,’ i am sure those hip kids at hejorama didn’t mean to offend me, i think i will initiate a discussion.’ everyone doesn’t operate like that.